Erasing Minority History in Trump's America

Donald Trump's war on diversity programs include erasing aspects of Black history, LGBTQIA+ history and the darker aspects of American history that do not align with Trump's right wing ideology.

Trump's attempts to whitewash history aim at 2 purposes.

One, the Trump administration aims to cover up the role of systemic racism in the political and economic development of the United States.

Second, the Trump administration wants to deny to minority groups the history of those Americans who resisted oppression and organized resistance to change oppressive systems.

An example of this was United States National Park Service deletion of information from its exhibits about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad to comply with Trump policies.

The U.S. National Park Service website also deleted reference to transgender individuals from the Stonewall National Monument.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. Naval Academy to remove from the Nimitz Library any books with diversity, equity and inclusion themes. Among the books that are being considered for removal are biographies on Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. This came after the Department of Defense website deleted articles on Jackie Robinson, the Navajo code breakers and the first Black recipient of the Medal of Honor.

The Trump administration criticized a Smithsonian American Art Museum sculpture exhibit that highlights how the American slave system disenfranchised a whole group of people.

Trump appointed Vice President JD Vance to vet exhibits and programs at the various Smithsonian entities. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to bring back monuments of Confederate figures.

"The Trump Administration’s Assaults on Black History" by Trey Walk for Human Rights Watch
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/04/10/trump-administrations-assaults-blac…

"Donald Trump’s War on History" by David Corn for Mother Jones
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/donald-trump-war-on-histor…

"Trump administration reportedly moves to ban Jackie Robinson biography from Naval Academy library" by Jack Baer for Yahoo Sports
https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/article/trump-administration-reportedly-mo…

"Historians alarmed as Trump seeks to rewrite US story for 250th anniversary" by Robert Tait for The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/04/trump-us-250th-annivers…

"Statements from GLAAD, Stonewall Inn on the Removal of the Word 'Transgender' from the Stonewall National Monument Websites" by GLAAD
https://glaad.org/releases/statements-on-the-removal-of-word-transgende…

"The Quiet Deletion of Black History Within Federal Agencies — and the Fight to Stop It" by Brandon Tensley for Capitol B
https://capitalbnews.org/trump-smithsonian-tubman-dei-order-erases-blac…

"Trump’s American History Revolution. As the 250th anniversary of America’s independence approaches, the president is moving to put his stamp on how the nation’s story is told, in Washington and beyond." by Jennifer Schuessler for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/arts/trump-american-history-250th.ht…